Dearly Depotted by Kate Collins

The third book in the Flower Shop Mystery series, this book picks up where Slay it with Flowers finishes up.

Abby has her hands full at her cousin Jillian's wedding as florist, bridesmaid, and grandma-sitter-all while wearing a hideous dress. Then the groom's 90-year-old grandmother goes missing from the reception. On her search, Abby finds the corpse of guest Jack Snyder. Now she must find out who killed Jack in the pulpit.

It's Fourth of July and Abby has her hands full. Not only is she doing the flowers for her cousin's wedding that she is bridesmaid in, but she is also doing a big job that she really needs the money from as well, so she spends her day rushing from one place to the next. Before she knows it, she also has to find her own groomsman because her partner has turned his ankle and won't be able to make it to the wedding, and she has to babysit her ex fiance's grandmother.

After making a scene during the wedding, and then witnessing a fight between one of the guests and a gate crasher, the wedding ceremony is finally over, and Abby can relax can't she...no not really because Grandma goes missing, and when she finds Grandma she also find a dead body...the gatecrasher who interrupted the ceremony.

After a friend becomes the primary suspect, Abby has no choice but to meddle..er...investigate and we work our way through all the clues and red herrings with her and her hot friend Marco. The romance is building nicely between these two...hopefully it won't be incredibly drawn out as these types of relationships can be in some cozy mysteries.

The thing with these cozy mysteries is that you need to immerse yourself in the story enough to suspend your belief in several things. The first is that all police in small towns are inept and couldn't find a murderer if they were still standing with the knife in their hands, dripping with blood. The second is that the inept police/public officials are willing to share information with the amateur sleuth in town who will inevitably be much better at finding the truth. The third thing is that all amateur sleuths are like cats - they all inevitably have more than one life. Abby is up to three as far as I can tell in as many months.

So does that mean that I don't enjoy these types books. No, not really - I do actually enjoy them immensely. It is more that you know at least some of what to expect when you pick up these books.

I am looking forward to picking up the next book in the series, which is called Snipped in the Bud. I also just found out today that Kate Collins also writes under the names of Linda O'Brien and Linda Eberhardt. My library has some of the O'Brien books so I am going to try and pick one of those up shortly.

Rating 4/5